“When I open this door,” she had said to him, still quiet and calm and not quite herself, “we will pretend. But after today, after this . . .” Dorian stood rigid, as if he ­were waiting for the blow to fall. “After this,” she said, “if you are all right with it, we will try to find ways to keep this from happening. Perhaps there’s some tonic to suppress it.”

   His face was still pale. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, and she knew he meant it. She went to the door and gave him a grim smile.

   “I will start researching to­night. If I find anything, I’ll let you know. And perhaps—­not now, but later . . . if Your Highness has the inclination, you could tell me a bit about how this is possible. It might help me somehow.” She didn’t give him time to say yes, but instead opened the door, walked back to the mess, and said a little louder than usual, “I am truly sorry, Your Highness . . . there was something on the floor, and I slipped, and—”

   From there, it had been easy. The snooping healers had arrived to see what the commotion was about, and one of them had scuttled off to Amithy. The prince had left, and Sorscha had been ordered to wait ­here.

   Amithy braced her forearms on the desk. “His Highness was extraordinarily generous, Sorscha. Let it be a lesson for you. You’re lucky you didn’t injure yourself further.”

   “I’ll make an offering to Silba today,” Sorscha lied, quiet and small, and left.

   •

   Chaol pressed himself into the darkened alcove of a building, holding his breath as Aedion approached the cloaked figure in the alley. Of all the places he’d expected Aedion to go when he slipped out of his party at the tavern, the slums ­were not one of them.

   Aedion had made a spectacular show of playing the generous, wild host: buying drinks, saluting his guests, ensuring everyone saw him doing something. And just when no one was looking, Aedion had walked right out the front, as if he ­were too lazy to go to the privy in the back. A staggering drunk, arrogant and careless and haughty.

   Chaol had almost bought it. Almost. Then Aedion had gotten a block away, thrown his hood over his head, and prowled into the night, stone-­cold sober.

   He’d trailed from the shadows as Aedion left the wealthier district and strolled into the slums, taking alleys and crooked streets. He could have passed for a wealthy man seeking another sort of woman. Until he’d stopped outside this building and that cloaked figure with the twin blades approached him.

   Chaol ­couldn’t hear the words between Aedion and the stranger, but he could read the tension in their bodies well enough. After a moment, Aedion followed the newcomer, though not before he thoroughly scanned the alley, the rooftops, the shadows.

   Chaol kept his distance. If he caught Aedion buying illicit substances, that might be enough to get him to calm down—­to keep the parties at a minimum and control the Bane when it arrived.

   Chaol tracked them, mindful of the eyes he passed, every drunk and orphan and beggar. On a forgotten street by the Avery’s docks, Aedion and the cloaked figure slipped into a crumbling building. It ­wasn’t just any building, not with sentries posted on the corner, by the door, on the rooftop, even milling about the street, trying to blend in. They ­weren’t royal guards, or soldiers.

   It ­wasn’t a place to purchase opiates or flesh, either. He’d been memorizing the information Celaena had gathered about the rebels, and had stalked them as often as he’d trailed Aedion, mostly to no avail. Celaena had claimed they’d been looking for a way to defeat the king’s power. Larger implications aside, if he could find out not only how the king had stifled magic but also how to liberate it before he was dragged back to Anielle, then Dorian’s secret might be less explosive. It might help him, somehow. And Chaol would always help him, his friend, his prince.

   He ­couldn’t stop a shiver down his spine as he touched the Eye of Elena and realized the derelict building, with this pattern of guards, positively reeked of the rebels’ habits. Perhaps it ­wasn’t mere coincidence that had led him ­here.

   He was so focused on his thundering heart that Chaol didn’t have a chance to turn as a dagger pricked his side.

   19

   Chaol didn’t put up a fight, ­though he knew he was as likely to receive death as he was answers. He recognized the sentries by their worn weapons and their fluid, precise movements. He’d never forget those details, not after he’d spent a day being held prisoner in a ware­house by them—­and witnessed Celaena cut through them as though they were stalks of wheat. They’d never known that it had been their lost queen who came to slaughter them.

   The sentries forced him to his knees in an empty room that smelled of old hay. Chaol found Aedion and a familiar-­looking old man staring down at him. The one who had begged Celaena to stop that night in the ware­house. There was nothing remarkable about the old man; his worn clothes ­were ordinary, his body lean but not yet withered. Beside him stood a young man Chaol knew by his soft, vicious laugh: the guard who had taunted him when he’d been held prisoner. Shoulder-­length dark hair hung loose around a face that was more cruel than handsome, especially with the wicked scar slashing through his eyebrow and down his cheek. He dismissed the sentries with a jerk of his chin.

   “Well, well,” Aedion said, circling Chaol. His sword was out, gleaming in the dim light. “Captain of the Guard, heir of Anielle, and spy? Or has your lover been giving you some tricks of the trade?”

   “When you throw parties and convince my men to leave their posts, when you’re not at those parties because you’re sneaking through the streets, it’s my duty to know why, Aedion.”

   The scarred young man with the twin swords stepped closer, circling with Aedion now. Two predators, sizing up their prey. They’d probably fight over his carcass.

   “Too bad your Champion isn’t ­here to save you this time,” the scarred one said quietly.

   “Too bad you ­weren’t there to save Archer Finn,” Chaol said.

   A flare of nostrils, a flash of fury in cunning brown eyes, but the young man fell silent as the old man held out a hand. “Did the king send you?”

   “I came because of him.” Chaol jerked his chin at Aedion. “But I’ve been looking for you two—­and your little group—­as well. Both of you are in danger. What­ever you think Aedion wants, what­ever he offers you, the king keeps him on a tight leash.” Perhaps that bit of honesty would buy him what he needed: trust and information.

   But Aedion barked out a laugh. “What?” His companions turned to him, brows raised. Chaol glanced at the ring on the general’s finger. He hadn’t been mistaken. It was identical to the ones the king, Perrington, and others had worn.

   Aedion caught Chaol’s look and stopped his circling.